Delicate

I could say I was in the park looking for some beautiful flowers to photograph. After all, I do believe there is something very special about their delicate appearance, making them a good choice for Ann-Christine’s challenge. In spite of looking so delicate, flowers are often surprisingly resilient. No, I wasn’t going to overthink this.

The truth is May is a restless month for me; it always has been. So the photo challenge was certainly a good pretext, but I was actually taking advantage of those free moments in the middle of the day in order to quiet my thoughts, disconnect and gain some perspective. If I could literally smell the blooming roses and also capture them, even better.

There weren’t many people around at that hour, and I wasn’t really paying attention to them. The roses were in bloom, as I expected; so were other flowers. The soft warm breeze smelt like flowers and fresh grass and spring, it was so easy to forget the town with all its noises and fast pace was only a few steps away. Like I said, I wasn’t focusing on people. My eyes were searching for delicate beauty, some fragile plants, cute little birds perhaps.

First I noticed the bottle on the ground by the bench… next to his foot. I immediately woke up from my reverie and became very aware of my surroundings, as any woman walking alone in an almost deserted park would, even in the middle of the day. Like it or not, drunk homeless people on park benches aren’t exactly a surprising sight in a large urban area… not in this little corner of the world, at least. But the man angrily mumbling to himself in his drunken stupor that early afternoon on a park bench wasn’t the usual sight. The feet next to that bottle were wearing a nice pair of shoes… he was a well-dressed individual, with a neat haircut and fashionably trimmed beard, probably in his early 40s.

Those fragile flowers appear so delicate to us, human beings… but are we really stronger? That balance which keeps us together, which helps us function so efficiently, it’s equally delicate; and once it’s been disturbed… Well, there’s no guarantee it can be restored. It was a delicate situation, I was intruding and he didn’t seem to like it, so I walked faster.

It’s often mentioned about some people that they are delicate flowers, and it’s said in a pejorative way. But don’t we all crumble under pressure sometimes, don’t we all have our “delicate flower” moments?…